1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to optical fiber, and particularly to dispersion compensating optical fibers and systems employing same.
2. Technical Background
While some optical transmission systems can tolerate fairly large amounts of residual dispersion at 10 Gbit/second, these systems can tolerate only small amounts of residual dispersion at higher transmission rates of about 40 Gbit/second without causing unwanted signal distortion. Dispersion in such high bit-rate optical transmission systems needs to be controlled at the wavelength, or wavelengths, or interest. Various solutions have been proposed to achieve dispersion, and dispersion slope, values required for compensating transmission fibers. One approach involves housing a dispersion compensating fiber in a dispersion compensating module wherein the dispersion compensating fiber compensates for the accumulated dispersion of the transmission fiber at a location where the fiber end is accessible. Such modules include a length of dispersion compensating fiber wound onto a spool or reel.
Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems have operated around the 1550 nm wavelength region, defined herein as including the C-band, which includes wavelengths between about 1525 nm to about 1565, and the L-band, which includes wavelengths between about 1565 nm to about 1625 nm